


You filled my day (without any fragrance)...

by ThatDamnLemonade



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - War, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jaemin and Jeno mentioned, Lost Love, M/M, Memories, Mentioned Lee Taeyong, Open to Interpretation, Possible Character Death, Shuhua from (g)i-dle, jisung - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 05:53:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16528661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnLemonade/pseuds/ThatDamnLemonade
Summary: Time tests his faltering resolve that keeps the shambles of his heart wrapped in memories of a love that he still yearns for.





	You filled my day (without any fragrance)...

**Author's Note:**

> Mild trigger warning because this theme can be triggering for some. There's no physical violence or anything about the actual warzone. Just emotional turmoil and Donghyuck. 
> 
> I don't quite know if this qualifies as angst, but if you will...
> 
> (Un-edited and un-betaed)

 

Donghyuck remembers.

The floor was covered in dust and the windows had yellowed over time, but he still remembers the way sunlight filtered into the small house. How it lit up the open kitchen and the breeze wafted with it the scent of sweet pancakes every morning. The couch wasn’t as moth eaten before and the lampshades had turned a dim brown, unused and neglected like everything else in his life.

He runs the tips of his fingers over the round wooden table in the centre of the hall, leaving dark traces amidst the layers that time had left behind, cruel, he thinks.

It’s been 4 years (4 years and 67 days, not that he’d been counting diligently) since the last time he saw Mark. He remembers that they had cuddled up on the same couch, tears streaming down both their cheeks and lips pressing in fervent and feverish kisses over whatever expanse of skin they found. Donghyuck was exempt from being deployed because of a minor muscle condition he had since birth. Mark on the other hand, was being sent far, far away. It was neither of their fault, nor anyone else’s. Just the world that was at odds with something or the other at all times.

He remembers the times when Mark was a regular salesman. When he would suddenly show up at the doorstep of Donghyuck’s publishing subsidiary and how they would spend hours talking in the confines of his office. Sometimes holding hands in between, wary of the eyes of many others and the sweet but salty quips Jisung sent their way. He loved them, and they loved him but a shift in the market and major unemployment took Jisung away to various other countries. He was now a traveller, Donghyuck had learned. At least something good came out of all the chaos.

They had sat holding hands, fingers pressing against each others tightly, scared and trembling but loving, deciding on what to do if Mark was called in for deployment. Donghyuck had said he would wait for as long as time would allow and even though he can’t exactly recall how Mark looked at that moment, he knows there had been watery eyes and wobbly smiles.

Donghyuck sighed, making circles in the dust with trembling fingers.

When the war began, all communication was cut off. He had waited as long as he could before being forced to shut down his workplace, the actual owner of the newspaper having shifted to selling alcohol as an act of rebellion (Taeyong had, after all, always been a little flighty and loved living on the edge even if he was particularly careful).

Thinking of alcohol, he had met Mark at a bar. They had been the only ones that were sitting alone in a gathering and things had clicked into place when they looked at each other. They knew they could have something special, just the way you do when you first meet someone very different and intriguing. It grew into friendship, trips to the lake, skinny dips in the pond, running around at night and making business plans together. Then one night, their usually unnoticed glances, subtle touches and warm voices melded together in confession. That yes, they had fallen in love with each other. In this unruly place where they would be condemned if caught together.

But what is love without a little risk and a running of fear in the background? They had trust and a bond stronger than those they had with anyone else.They could do it.

Those were the same things Donghyuck used to think about as he waited by the pier every time a war ship came back. He would adorn the sunhat Mark had picked just for him during a not-so-secret date and a lovely blouse every time. The war had gone on for an entire year. He would see people reunite, some fatigued, some exhausted. Some returned different than what they had left but we’re welcomed with the same love (maybe even more). He would do the same, if Mark was suddenly a little physically variable.

Mark, however, would never be there.

Not when the first ship left at sundown, not when other fleets came to shore.

The ship’s stopped returning after three months and a list came in its place. He had stood in a crowd of wailing children, sobbing widows, stunned parents and frantic friends to get a chance to find the name he was desperate for. Not that he wanted to see it on that list.

No altercations of 'Mark Lee’ or 'Lee Minhyung' were on that list. He even checked through the thousands of names twice, ensuring he hadn’t been lost due to a spelling error, even if it took him two whole days. The absence of his name meant just one thing. Mark wasn’t dead or lost. 

The ceremony to celebrate and honour their martyrs was held a month later and Mark wasn’t a name on a single headstone. Donghyuck tried to look for people who could have known him there. A sweet person by the name of Jaemin and his friend, Jeno, confirmed that Mark had indeed been with them throughout. That they probably knew more about Donghyuck from fond recollections and that Mark had been excellent. That he never got injured too much and was a helping hand at the healing camps instead.

But they hadn’t seen him when the war ended. The entirety of doctors, nurses and medical helpers had vanished.

And so, whatever little shreds of hope Donghyuck had struggled to grasp onto...had disappeared.

It was two years ago when his marriage was arranged.

A lovely lady who went by Shuhua, a fellow pained soul who had lost her lover to the dredges of war. They agreed to the arrangement, promising to help each other. They would be lonely together and heal as much as possible.

He would recount his adventures (or rather misadventures with Mark) as they lay on their respective beds in the cool of their new bedroom. She would laugh along at the right moments and pitch her own stories, her own recollections as she reached out for a wad of tissues she kept by the bedstead.

Maybe, just maybe, Donghyuck used to think, they would fall in love with each other. They did, not romantically, but as best friends who backed each other no matter what.

Donghyuck closed his eyes and burried his hands into the pockets of his trench coat. He had come to pay this place one last visit. He wondered if Mark had made it alive after all. There had been days when both he and Shuhua had cried in each other’s arms, scared because they couldn’t recall the contours of their cheekbones, the softness of their lips and the crinkle of eyes. They wouldn’t talk about it later, but knowing that they weren’t suffering alone was enough. He accompanied her to his grave with a bouquet of flowers he had arranged himself. It was a small action, but it seemed to have touched her enough that she did everything in her power to search for Mark.

He learned later that the two of them were married because they were, in the eyes of society, defective. He wasn’t into women the way most men were and she was barren. To keep them away from the torture of asylums and hospitals, their families had reached out to each other.

Happiness in Donghyuck’s life never lasted long.

All it took was one diagnosis. One report.  
His inborn weakness had progressed rapidly. He should have known the moment his legs would ache more often. When his first gets would twitch involuntarily and when he wouldn’t be able to move despite putting in all his effort.

He pulled out a neat maroon envelope and placed it on the table.

The table itself was so very special. When the bar had closed down, he and Mark had bought it from the owner. It was a treasure box of memories. Of moments not getting and weak, frigid and sunny. Their first kiss, their first drinks, the untimely proposal before Mark went away and the first time they had cried together.

Donghyuck didn’t have the heart to go through the rest of the house. He had already taken away all of Mark’s clothes for himself and whatever was left now, was a reminder of the future they could have had if it weren’t for the unfairness of the world. It stung. It was, very figuratively and nearly literally, like daggers through his heart.

He spent endless nights trying to recall the feeling of his fingers between his own, his skin against his cheeks and his hair under his chin as they hugged. Or kissed or whatever but it ended with him wracking into sobs and large, ugly tears.

He had two theories about what could have happened to Mark.

Donghyuck glanced at the envelope and turned around to leave. The door closed behind him softly as he hid the spare keys in the same spot under a dead plant on the window ledge.

Mark could be dead. The entire medical team could have moved because they had been under attack. They could all be dead in a place nobody had thought of searching in. Their bodies could be lost, nothing more than dust by now. The same dust that covered every inch of his lovely past.

Or he could be alive.

Donghyuck turned the corner around the bustling road. He was being shifted to the hospital later today. Walking was getting difficult. It took him 20 minutes to walk a distance that would normally take 5. But at least, he could move. When he had Shuhua write the letter for him, she had asked him if she should wait outside for him but he simply shook his head. This was his demon.

Even if it meant that every step he took felt like needles pricking through his calves and half his thighs feeling numb.

Mark could have escaped to some far unknown place with the others. They could be safe, just under cover and from there on, there were yet another million possibilities. Donghyuck liked to think about the good ones. Ones that didn’t necessarily always involve the bitter reality of being left behind.  
He would never know.

It was in hopes of one such frail possibility that he left his last words for the person he loved more than anything else in the universe—the person his heart still ached for and for whom even someone as cynical as Donghyuck would fold hands in prayer for.

He saw Shuhua waiting for him in a simple travelling cloak, luggage packed and a carriage waiting in front of her.

This was it, Donghyuck realized as he felt fresh tears in eyes.

He was being sent to his death, an affair the doctors had promised to make as painless as possible. It was going to be smooth and Shuhua was going to be by his side, not as his legal wife, but as the friend he needed and respected beyond words.

As he was helped into the medical carriage, the faint scent of antiseptic and earth trickling upon him, he found himself wrapped in warm arms.

A vivid memory made its way into his heart as he drifted off, one where the skies were clear and the sun shone high. Where they lay, sprawled on the grass with beaming smiles, proclamations of love and fluttering kisses with promises of an eternity.

As his head lolled over and onto her strong shoulder, he could only wish for one thing.

A fleeting wish for the kindness of a universe where the war never happened.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> "4 years and 67 days" 
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
> Interpret as you will.


End file.
